16 comments:

How very, very right you are, Patti. It's always hardest when the snake is in your pocket the whole time, chatting you up, flashing shiny scales and blogger awards. It's tough to turn down accolades, even when they're slightly tarnished.

There's just no cultural excuse, though, for emailing a man with vulgar suggestions, blatant and unwarranted attempts at seduction and refusing to acknowledge his "NO.".

Enough is enough.

Thanks for taking a stand, for channeling your inner mongoose. In this case, the frog gets eaten by the mongoose, I'm thinkin'...

I remember that happening to me before too. Not online, but in person. I wrote a poem filled with pain and hurt and my peers who I showed it to giggled and laughed. They saw the "sex" instead of the "rape". It was awful. :-(

Ti: The frog (aka toad) need have no fear, as this particular mongoose is really fond of that particular toad. The snake, on the other hand is at great risk.

Mama Z: Thank you. It's incredible that anything need be said at all.

Tari: It takes a brave soul to write honest poetry and lay bare true feelings. Sadly, some people either don't bother even trying to understand or just can't resist trampling. I'm sorry that happened to you.

Goddess: Great word, that.

Somewhere in my rational mind is a suspicion that there is a clinical flaw at the root of such insensitivity. But my emotional mind say that's just not an acceptable excuse.

So many do not understand. Don't want or care to understand. Ignorance is bliss, until the snake bites you. How do we stop the phone from Jingle-ing Patti? How do we make people care, really and truly?

kkrige & Wild Rose: I guess the only thing we can do to fight this sort of thing is to just shout NO in as loud a cyber-voice as we can muster. The reverberation of the many NOs shouted this time was no doubt heard round the world. Personally, my best defense with this one is to stay out of that particular sandbox.

I've never been cyber-stalked as far as I know, but I am vexed by thoughtless, and obviously patronizing comments on my work. For example, I wrote a heart breaking poem recently and the comment was..."Cute...", go figure :) Thank you, My Friend

Tracy: For the most part, the bloggers who people our little corner of the blogosphere are amazing, and so supportive. But obviously,not everyone is. As I said in a reply above, my defense is to stay out of that sandbox. I know it is a popular one, but I have more than enough outlets for my words.